


This Is Halloween

by VitaLupum



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 16:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/838810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VitaLupum/pseuds/VitaLupum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Medic thinks Halloween is a load of rubbish. The base changes that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is Halloween

If there was anything Medic hated, it was Halloween.

He just didn't see the point; whilst his childhood friends had been carving their  _ausgehöhlter Kürbis_  and painting their faces, he had been sat firmly inside, playing board games with his two sisters and listening to his father talk about his hard days at work as a doctor, or watching his mother iron their clothes for school and chattering at her about how he would be a world famous musician one day, or practising his violin.

Now he was sat in Heavy's room with the self-same Amati, playing a beautiful, light-hearted song in defiance of the general artificial gloom and horror surrounding him. It was times like this he wished he had his own room in the base,  _just_ so he could refuse to put nonsensical fake cobwebs everywhere and not hand out sweets.

Scout he could understand, zipping about the base dressed like some kind of werewolf – the boy was young and a tad insane. Maybe Spy, with his penchant for the theatrical and his love of playing ridiculous pranks on the others. And Pyro was a walking costume himself. But the others? It was downright childish.

And yet he had seen Soldier tearing past in an earth-covered suit and top hat – where the man had gotten soil in this sandy clime was slightly confusing, but if anyone had a shovel with him at all times, it was Soldier – and Shovel, shouting about gravedigging. He had been closely followed by Engineer, who was wearing an utterly terrifying clown costume, ruined a little by the fact that his squeaky red nose kept falling off and he kept tripping over his absurdly large clown feet. It really was stupid.

As his fingers danced over the strings, Debussy falling from the air gently, he smiled widely. He had almost drowned out the-

"Doktor?"

He jumped slightly, notes suddenly squealing and discordant, and Heavy looked apologetic.

"Vat in ze hell are  _you_?"

"I am ghost," Heavy said, enthusiastic and a little muffled. He edged his enormous frame around the door, and Medic stared at his costume. It comprised chiefly of an enormous, blindingly white sheet. "Is still smelling of bleach, but is very good ghost costume compared to disgusting old sheet." Enormous eyeholes had been cut in the head, with the result that if Heavy's nose desperately needed to see what was happening, it could. Medic sighed.

"Zey got  _you_?" he asked despairingly, and Heavy looked confused. "It doesn't matter,  _Freund_."

"Is Doktor not going to wear costume?" Heavy asked, sounding sad. "Will be fun!"

" _Nein_ , Heavy, it vill be juvenile  _und_  foolish," Medic sighed. " _Aber_ , don't let me stop you." He placed his violin gently in its case, and lay back on the bed. "I zink I vill get an early night."

* * *

How he got to the mess hall was anyone's guess, but he did, sat with the other members of his team who were all being far too enthusiastic. Why couldn't they be this enthusiastic about Easter? At least there was nice chocolate at Easter, as opposed to disgusting American 'candy'.

"…and as it crept up tae the windows," Demoman slurred, "it looked in… and realised, ye ken, that it was nae a hoose. It was a pub!" He paused, and took a glug from his bottle of scrumpy. "Ye ken, I bloody love pubs…"

"Okay, so, maybe if someone we understand tells a story, numbnuts," Scout said, rolling his eyes. "I'd tell ya all one, but ya know, I don't think ya can handle a real American ghost story."

"Wrong!" Soldier barked, and there was a heated dispute until Pyro leant in and broke it up with his devil's trident. A devil had been a good choice for the firestarter; the horns sat atop his mask perfectly.

"Mmph hm," he said warningly, and they sat back, Scout evidently sulking.

"I've got one," Sniper grinned, and leant back in his chair. "And you can talk about yer bloody American ghosts," he nodded at Scout, "remember, in Oz, everythin's trynna kill ya. So are the bloody ghosts."

 _Local legend has it_ , Sniper said, adopting a theatrical tone which made even his cheerful voice dark and expressionless,  _not far from where I grew up…_  "-so I'm not bloody tellin' you in case that damn spook overhears – where the bloody 'ell is he, anyway?-"  _…there's a billabong_.

"What in the hell-"

"Oxbow lake, Scout."

"What in the hell-"

_There was a local rustler, used to come and take sheep from a ranch, got chased off but came back anyway. Balls of bloody diamond. Anyway, one night, the squatter…_

"Like a hobo?"

"Scout!"

 _-kinda illegal owner of the land,_  shut it, ya little motormouth,  _the squatter's daughter comes wandering down to see what's happening, you know, what's the ruckus. She's a beautiful creature, all long waves of brown hair, eyes so dark they're almost black, ruby red lips… gorgeous. So she sets eyes on this poacher, and he sets eyes on her, and boom! They're in love._

 _So every night, they start sneaking down to this billabong to see each other. And this sneaking around don't sit well with the squatter, so he sits up one night with a rifle and waits to see exactly what the hell she's doing out there. And lo and behold, there she is with this guy he recognises from stealing his sheep. So he waits until his daughter's left, puts a bullet between this guy's eyes, chucks him into the billabong to be eaten and leaves, easy as you like_.

Sniper had, almost unconsciously, mimicked the exact actions of shooting somebody between the eyes, and his 'victim', Scout, opened his mouth as if to interject, and seemed to think better of it. He drew his knees up to his chest, and stared into the eyes of the Australian. Medic thought it was ridiculous, getting drawn into this infantile game like they were children in their attic with a torch.

_He doesn't tell his daughter, and the next night he notices she's vanished off. He thinks about following her so he can take her home when she finds he's not there, but he's feeling pretty annoyed she lied to him, so he doesn't bother._

Scout was grasping the edge of his chair with one hand, and Pyro's glove with the other. Medic almost rolled his eyes. Phrases like 'palpable fear' and 'trance' were all very well and good in stories. In the real world, all that happened was you jumped a bit when someone shouted 'boo' as the punchline.

_She stands by the billabong for an hour, and she's heartbroken and worried when suddenly she hears a voice cry out._

Although, it seemed that  _everyone_  was rather entranced. Heavy was certainly looking a little afraid – what could be seen of him was, at least – and Engineer wasn't smiling. Neither was Demoman. Everybody, the eight of them in the room, did seem…

_It sounds like her beloved, so she looks around, careful not to get too close to the water in case something gets her. But she can hear this voice still, and its coming from the water. So she inches closer and closer, looking for crocs in the moonlight, and suddenly she sees him. He's lying underwater, arms stretched out, and he's calling to her. So she throws herself in to save him._

Heavy had reached out his hand, and Medic felt an uneasy chill down his spine as he took it. There was something eerie in the story. All eight  _were_  hypnotized, and he couldn't help but feel there was something wrong… eight…

_His arms wrap around her, and as she begins to struggle against his grip she realises she's being held by a corpse. And not only that, one that's been attacked by a croc. She can see into his insides, and as she opens her mouth to scream-_

"Boo."

Spy flashed into visibility in the middle of the table. At the same moment, the power cut.

There was a scream, a crash, a few hoarse yells of shock, another crash, and the sound of something rolling along in the purest of theatrical moments. Then a light flickered on – Pyro had lit a candle through some of his own magic – and the scene was illuminated.

The chaos had radiated outwards from Spy, who was calmly stood in the middle of the carnage flicking his knife. Scout was attempting to open the door of a locker – presumably he had thought it was the way out, although hiding in it seemed to be appealing. Sniper was on the floor entangled partially with a chair and partially with Demoman, who seemed to have had the same thought of leaping on top of the chair, presumably in case the monsters were rabid mice. Soldier had managed to dig through part of the floor and was wielding Shovel upside down. Engineer was holding armfuls of candles, standing next to Pyro, and Heavy had scooped up Medic in his arms, who was clutching around the enormous Russian's neck.

"You… you… bloody…!" Sniper panted, and Demoman had to pin him to the floor in order to stop him from severely injuring the Frenchman.

"Did I scare you?" Spy asked casually, and grinned. "I could see Medic counting 'eads and I thought it was time to make my appearance. By the way, German, how is the view from up there?"

"I knew it," Medic said shakily. "I vasn't scared at all."

" _Non_ ,  _mon ami_ , and that is why you were using the Russian as a climbing frame,  _oui_?" Spy teased, a grin crossing his face. "Well, it would appear that the power has gone out… I presume this is a job for the man  _avec le_  plan… Engineer?"

"Yup. Gonna have to go into the basement 'n' sort it out. Who's comin' with me?" Engineer asked. There was a resounding silence that seemed louder than any noise they could have made. "C'mon, fellas, y'ain't scared…?"

"I vill go," Medic said, and tapped Heavy on the arm. He was released. "Sniper, Scout?"

"No way, man, I got nyctophobia," was what  _should_  have come from Scout's mouth, if his common sense hadn't suddenly been run over by his bravado, which was late for an appointment with the rest of the group. Instead, he chose the words, "sure, man, I mean, uh, no sweat."

"A'right," Sniper said, a trifle uneasy. It dawned on Medic he had never reached the end of the story. That was probably a good thing.

"I will attend also," Spy smiled. "After all, I have just scared the  _merde_  out of you."

* * *

And so they found themselves in the dark, half-flooded basement corridors of RED Base. The clicking and the whirrs and the beeps and the scuffling all added to make a terrifying atmosphere, which wasn't helped at all by the occasional light touch on the motley crew's faces, arms, necks…

"You guys wait here. Fusebox's just up ahead, an' company protocol says I ain't s'posed t'let y'all see it," Engineer said apologetically. "I'll leave the torch for ya, I know my way around the fusebox by touch anyhow." As he ambled off down the corridor into the gloom, Sniper, Scout and Medic drew closer together.

"Come on, fellows, surely you are not scared," Spy said, and there was a rumble. "Is someone 'ungry?"

"What was that?" Scout whispered, clutching Medic's arm. Medic put an arm around the boy in a fatherly gesture, and when it wasn't pushed away he knew that there was something very wrong. "I, er, I ain't scared, but what was that?"

"Jar-man, that was not  _funny_ ," Spy said flatly. There was a faint whisper now, and Medic was suddenly envisioning dead hands reaching from the water, teeth marks deep into the bones. His exposure to dead bodies added gruesome details of decay, the familiar sweet stench filling his nostrils.

"That… wasn't me," Sniper murmured uneasily.

"Vat… how did ze story end?" Medic quavered.

"The father… he… he came out looking for his kid," Sniper said slowly. There was a splashing to their right, and the entire group drew closer together. "He found blood on the… the ground, and when he leant over the billabong…" There was silence, and Medic found himself being hidden behind by two grown men and a slightly less grown man.

" _Und_?" he prompted, not sure he wanted to hear what was coming.

"They…" Sniper's voice was a dry whisper now, breath slightly wheezing in fear, "…they never found all of him, and they told the cops he'd been eaten by crocs, but the bites on all of the bits they found were  _human_ …"

"On three, we leave the Texan 'ere to die," Spy mumbled, pausing halfway to swallow desperately to try and regain saliva. " _Un_.  _Deux_."

He never reached  _trois_ , as something reared up before them, something that emitted its own light from the rotting, squished pumpkin that it called a head. Its fingers grasped for them, breath a sweet, rotting haze of decay and disgust, and as its purple cape swirled around it all four men screamed long and loud.

The apparition vanished, and Engineer stumbled back as the lights flickered on.

"What the hell?" he asked. The four men were on the floor, clutching onto each other, Scout openly sobbing in Medic's arms, Spy with his head against Sniper's chest and his knees to his own torso. "What  _happened_?"

* * *

Later that night, after the tale had been told, retold, and reretold, Medic lay in his bed at the foot of Heavy's bunk.

"So, Doktor, did enjoy Halloween?" Heavy asked happily, and Medic shuddered.

"I do not zink it is a vaste of time anymore," he offered, and Heavy laughed.


End file.
